TD2 2021 Adventure - Week 7 - "Almost Home"

Hello friends,

Here's your ninth (and penultimate) installment of Thistle Dew Too's (TD2) 2021 Adventure.  This is Week 7, and we've continued northward heading toward the Canadian Border for a possible "short cut" home.  Plus we've never been to Eastern Wyoming, North Dakota or Minnesota.  

Our first adventure this week was the "good" mis-fortune was trying to drive through Rocky Mountain National Park.  Once again, I didn't bother to check to see if they too were using a reservation system to enter the park.  Had I done so, I could have learned that if we got there before 8:30AM, we could enter without a reservation.  But alas, our only option was to circumvent the park.  

The "good" part of this mis-fortune was that we headed more northerly, and eventually found ourselves on the quite beautiful Snowy Range Scenic Byway that crosses the Medicine Bow Mountains in Wyoming.  There we also met up with fellow Lazy Daze travelers, and got to check out their brand-new 2021 Rear-Bath model -- very nice and very tempting.  But don't worry Thistle Dew Too, we still love you!

Thanks to the wonders of the internet, we found the fantastic Picnic Springs Campground in the Custer National Forest of Wyoming (and it was free).  This is not a place you will stumble upon -- you have to drive a bit to get there, and there is virtually no road signage to help.  But man, what an interesting camping spot.  You'll see a number of videos from this location -- some interesting geological features, and Steven's version of Running with the Bulls (ok ... cows ;-)

After getting into North Dakota, the temps were really warming up, so we decided to drive through the very lightly used North Unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  We checked out their campground, but it didn't have electric hookups, which would have been nice during the heatwave.  They did have some very interesting geological features.

And we end this week in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, otherwise known as Minnesota ;-).  We camped at the aptly-named Leech Lake (first named by the Ojibwe people as "Ozagaskwaajimekaag-zaaga'igan," which translates to "lake abundant with bloodsuckers!").  This is the 3rd largest lake in MN after a dam was installed that raised the water level of the surrounding area by 2 feet, thereby combining 6 different lakes into one.

Turns out forest fires from out west delivered smoke haze to the skies this week, making it often monotone and featureless -- not great for landscape photos (some extra post-processing was needed to draw out whatever features I could).  So this week you get a few less photos, but to hopefully compensate, nine(!) videos.  In any case, here are a few preview shots of Week 7:

Lake Marie backed by Snowy Range

Carol looking cool during a heat-wave

Steven checks out his meditation cave

Cruising and fishing the channels at Leech Lake

Please click this link to access the full set of photos for Week 7 ("Almost Home") of our TD2 2021 adventure.  As you move your cursor over each photo, you will see a descriptive caption, and if needed, place the cursor on the caption itself to read the whole thing, or just double-click the photo.  

Next up, we'll be racing around the Great Lakes on our final stretch home (news flash - they did not open the border on 7/21 as I had hoped).

So until our next (and final) installment ... Steven and Carol Crisp are wishing you all the best and hoping Life is treating you well!